Working on getting this bike sorted. I plan to ride this for the Tri Cities (WA) 70.3 in a few weeks. I'm probably about 90% there, just need a little fine tuning. I started off moving the saddle as far forward as I could since that was the whole point of this bike anyway. From there, I changed the stack and reach to be relatively close to what my Shiv is after being fitted. Because of the more forward position, that's going to change a bit too, and that will require a little more experimentation.



So for starters, I swapped out that saddle with a Sella Italia Watt Superflow. The Fizik that came on it had no nose and I felt like I was constantly fighting to keep from falling off the front. Second, and most obvious, I swapped out those heavy Mavic alloy wheels for a set of Roval Rapide 50mm I picked up from an Ebay seller. Got to tell you, that was the easiest tubeless set up I can imagine, so much easier than either of my Reynolds wheels. Hell, I mounted them last night, filled them with air to set the bead and they held air all night long without any sealant! I put sealant in them this morning, aired them back up and went for a 36 mile ride. Bike was flawless. The other thing I did was replace the stem with a 130mm from Zipp and extend both the aero bars and elbow pads forward. I still need to trim up those cables though. Freshly waxed chain. I would also like to find a top tube bag that bolts to this frame and I have another cassette with a 30T final gear coming from Jenson.

I'm a little surprised it's not noticeably faster than the Shiv but I think there might be more in it as I get it dialed in. Today, I did a 36 mile route I've done a few times before. It was definitely in the ballpark but not any faster than the Shiv. I also want to hang a couple more bottle cages off the back of that seat post. Sella makes a bracket for that saddle but it would occlude access to the bento box, which I am only using as a tool box, so I want to make something that flairs out a little bit and hides the bottles behind my legs.